FIG. 1a illustrates a PRIOR ART captive screw 1a disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,468,012; FIG. 1b illustrates a PRIOR ART captive screw 1b disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,338,139; and FIG. 1c illustrates a PRIOR ART captive screw 1c disclosed in US 2011/0072630. As is common with one type of prior art captive screws, captive screws 1a, 1b, and 1c each include a screw A, a cap B, a ferrule C, and a spring D. The spring D is housed outside the screw A, though inside the cap B and the ferrule C. FIG. 1d illustrates another PRIOR ART captive screw 1d, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,794,889, and FIG. 1e illustrates a PRIOR ART captive screw 1e, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,761,521. Similar to the captive screws 1a, 1b, and 1c, the captive screws 1d and 1e similarly include a screw A, a ferrule C, and a spring D outside the screw A; however, as is common with a second type of prior art captive screws, the cap B is omitted such that the spring D outside the screw A is exposed. Any numbers appearing in FIGS. 1a through 1e not noted above are simply reproduced from the original documents and do not correspond to any numbers used herein; thus, they should be ignored.
Various embodiments of the current invention relate to captive screws (sometimes called captive panel fasteners), to assemblies having such fasteners, and to methods of using such fasteners.